BULLETIN OF DENISON UNIVERSITY. 1 63 
the Romans actually pronounced their language, its sound-changes are 
quite inexplicable. The farther the pronunciation adopted departs 
from the true — and the English departs from it very far arid at many 
points — the more inexplicable the sound-changes become. Some of 
them, to one acquainted with that method only, are not only without 
reason but flatly contrary to reason. No accurate study of Latin phon- 
ology is possible without knowledge of the true sounds of the language. 
In philological work, also, comparison of Latin words with those words 
which in other languages are kindred with the Latin, but not de- 
rived from it, can be safely done by no one unacquainted with the 
Roman pronunciation. On the other hand, the young English-speak- 
ing student, in acquiring his Latin vocabulary, and in comparing with 
Latin words the immense element of English which is directly or in- 
directly of Latin origin, is very seriously retarded by the use of any 
other than the English pronunciation. Again, Latin poetry is incompar- 
ably more beautiful when pronounced in the true ancient way, with all 
the quantities carefully observed. Of course this cannot be done by 
those who use the English method. On the other hand, when we con- 
sider how exceedingly , small is the number of those who in using the 
Roman method pay even the slightest attention to quantity (except in 
settling the accent) and that in the lower schools not one in a hun- 
dred, not one in a thousand teachers has a ready and accurate knowl- 
edge of quantities, the practical gain from using this method even in 
poetry are seen to be somewhat misty. Indeed, and this must always be 
the gravest dififlculty in trying to pronounce as the Romans did, the 
quantity of so many vowels is unknownand seems likely ever to re- 
main unknown, that any approach to accurate quantitative pronuncia- 
tion (and the ancient pronunciation was essentially quantitative) 
seems hopeless. Of course, the most perplexing case is that of syllables 
long by position. Here all agree that the vowel was pronounced with 
its own quantity, short or long, regardless of the position of the syl- 
lable. But what is the quantity of the vowel in such a case ? In 
some classes of syllables the ancient testimony is conflicting, in most 
